A recent report, “Global Ultra Hard Material Cutting Machines Market” by Transparency Market Research, forecasts a healthy compound annual growth rate of 10.8 percent for these machines for the years 2016 to 2024, with the total market reaching $1.8 billion by the end of that period. The report’s authors expect rising demand to lead to more competition and lower prices.
TKD’s Laser Line Ultra with ultrashort-pulsed laser technology machines all commercially available cutting materials, including carbide, PCBN, ceramic, PCD, CVD-diamond and monocrystalline diamond without producing heat.
Also pushing the demand for ultrahard-material cutting machines is the rise in use of PCBN as a substitute for diamond, according to the report. Cutting tool tips made of PCBN or PCD are projected to spur demand for machines capable of cutting and shaping these ultrahard materials. PCD is an amalgam of diamond grains sintered in a cobalt/nickel matrix.
The global report analyzes three market segments of cutting machines for ultrahard materials: EDMs, laser cutting machines and others—primarily mechanical grinding machines that remove material with diamond abrasives.
EDM has the ability to create precise, complex shapes in ultrahard materials. However, the TMR report points out that new fiber laser technology is 30 times faster than EDM. It also efficiently machines complex geometries with finer-quality surfaces.There are other benefits, too, EDM requires a material that is electrically conductive, such as PCBN, but synthetic-diamond tools are nonconducting. The diamond grains in PCD tools are also nonconducting. As a result, EDMs are unable to create complex shapes, such as chipbreakers and chamfers, in these materials.
The TMR report’s projected growth rate of over 10 percent for ultrahard material cutting machines is “pretty realistic,” adding that the growth for the lasers powering these machines is even higher than that, as the market is ramping up.
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